Who would have foreseen the return of the “classic” dine ‘n’ dance club to Edmonton?

In an era of clatter, small plates and bar-counter informal dining, Halley’s Club stands out like a sore thumb.

A beautiful sore thumb! The massive ballroom-sized club in West Edmonton Mall is strangely beautiful, windowless with the highest of ceilings, all curtains and booths, polished wood and brass, some 270 seats.

Halley’s Club is part of the massive conversion of the mighty mall’s former Palace Casino/Jubilations Dinner Theatre/Rum Jungle spaces into the Starlight Casino but is strangely separate from the casino. Mall entrance #9 from the upper parkade and a big foyer are shared, but otherwise Halley’s is divorced from the casino’s noise ‘n’ neon.

The club is an explicit, very tasteful attempt by Gateway Casinos – the mother company of both the Starlight and the Grand Villa Casino by the Rogers Place arena – to recall the Roaring ’20s, and in a more general way, that entire era in America between the First and Second World Wars.

It’s a revival of a time when couples of all ages would dress up and head out for a night of fine-dining that morphed into dancing to the sound of a live, big band – into the early hours of the morning. The servers dress in ‘20s flapper garb. All that’s missing is the haze of cigar and cigarette smoke from the old Fred Astaire, Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant movies.

Here’s the exclamation mark on Halley’s Club: The food is delicious!

It’s deliberately timeless, very classical … and very, very good.

Crab-stuffed mushroom caps, moules et frites (mussels and French fries), pan-fried oysters, baked-brie, Beef Wellington, chicken cordon bleu, lamb chops: Timeless dishes out of those same movies, when the men were always in tuxedos, the women in ballgowns.

Timeless, yet contemporized.

The onion rings were like royalty, big, plump, crispy, stacked like doughnuts. There was no need for sauce, although the tasty house dip was a compliment.

Halley’s onion rings: Big, plump and piled skywards.

Breaded oysters are hard to find. Halley’s does a spectacular job – the coating had just the right crumbly texture playing against the hot oyster smoothness within, the flavour profile rounded out by a sour-ish pickle remoulade.

Old-fashioned but delicious: Halley’s pan-fried oysters.

All three mains our party tried hit the bull’s eye of classical yet updated dining. It’s been ages since Beef Wellington (tenderloin and sauces cooked inside a pastry shell) was on a menu. This one did all that’s expected – the beef tenderized by the heat collected within the pastry, its juices mixing with other herbs and sauces within.

Within the Beef Wellington is tender, succulent pastry-wrapped tenderloin.

The lamb chops were satisfying to a T. The innermost meat had been fully cooked, with that silky reddish pink moistness of a perfect chop.

The lamb chops were cooked within a degree of perfection.

It’s hard to go wrong with shrimp, but the chef coaxed some additional flavours out of an old standby. The pairing with the noodle-like but moist spaghettini was inspired.

Sauteed spinach and spaghettini were inspired choices on the garlic shrimp skillet.

And just as a shared dessert was being finished off, just as post-meal cognac digestifs might be coming to the table, onto the concert-like stage trooped the eight-piece Million-Dollar Dreamers big band – mostly MacEwan University music majors who play classics with a modern twist, modern tunes with a classic twist. On a busier night, that floor would be filled with dancers.

The space is big enough – and the soundman savvy enough – that the volume is just right. Not so loud as to inhibit conversation, but loud enough to be enjoyed.

My worry is that Halley’s Club is too good to be true – that the room might not generate enough cash flow to live up to these in-fact-very-expensive expectations. How disappointing it would be to see a classic club forced to appeal to the lowest common denominator for survival’s sake.

Hopefully Halley’s has a long and successful run – becoming THE place to dine ‘n’ dance from Thursdays to Saturdays. Rarely, if ever in living memory, has a ballroom so successfully integrated the notion of fine dining, dancing and listening in one evening.

This Week's Flyers

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.